


Something So Familiar

by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Familiar Steve Rogers, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Witch Bucky Barnes, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-28 21:23:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7657249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monkeygreen/pseuds/leveragehunters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bucky was seven the Training Masters told him he had no magic, no potential, that he'd never be a witch. It wasn't a surprise. Witches came from certain families and a certain class, just like magic was sterile and ordered and familiars were obedient and servile. That was simply the way the world worked.</p><p>Bucky grew up and got on with living his mundane life, knowing he was one hundred percent magic free. Which meant it came as something of a shock when the familiar appeared in his living room, claiming Bucky was his witch. It meant the Masters had been wrong. It meant Bucky had magic. </p><p>It meant, just maybe, that <i>wasn't</i> the way the world had to work after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something So Familiar

Two parts power, one part belief.

That's what it took to make a witch.

 

* * *

 

Bucky was seven when the Training Masters came to the school. Dressed in fine clothes, each with their badge of office—an octopus, red and gleaming—on their left breast with their familiars at their heels. Bucky didn't really care about the Masters. He was fascinated by the familiars. Some were human-shaped, some animal, some like creatures out of myth. The only thing they all had in common were their eyes: as deep as forever, holding all the secrets of the universe.

He barely noticed when one of the Masters placed a hand on his forehead. It tickled, somewhere inside his head, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the Master's familiar: a peacock, tail folded, standing obedient and subdued at his Master's heels.

"Nothing," the Master said. "No witch potential at all."

Bucky wasn't surprised. No one in his family had ever had magic. No one had ever been a witch. Witches didn't come from families like his.

Sure, magic was just another talent—some people had it, most people didn't—everyone knew that. Everyone _also_ knew that witches came from certain kinds of families, that witches belonged to a certain social class. Bucky _wasn't_ surprised he wouldn't grow up to be a witch. He was kind of sad he'd never have a familiar.

The Masters only picked out two people in his class as having potential to be future witches, and they were exactly who everyone had expected.

 

* * *

 

The world hadn't always been like this. Witches had once come from everywhere: from every part of society and every type of family imaginable. Familiars had been partners and friends. Magic had been wild and messy and hot. It had been chaotic and joyous, something to be celebrated.

Certain people hadn't liked that. Certain people had wanted magic to be clean and measured. Precise. To follow exact rules. To be a model of perfect order.

Everything began to change. Familiars were expected to _obey_. To serve. The Training Masters stopped finding potential in those they deemed less desirable.

Magic was two parts power and one part belief.

If someone believed, truly believed, they could never be a witch, any power they might hold would shape that belief into reality.

Most of the time.

 

* * *

 

Bucky was happy enough, all things considered. He had a job in an office with entirely unobjectionable co-workers. He owned a house, free and clear, which was better than most people could say at almost thirty (not that he could take any credit for that; he'd inherited it from his uncle). It was bigger than one person needed (and _that_ wasn't doing better than most people his age, he knew: no husband, no wife, no kids on the horizon). It had a gigantic yard he mostly ignored and let run wilder than he knew he should.

His life was mundane, kind of on the boring side. More than a little lonely, now that his family was gone, but he tried to ignore that just like he ignored the yard. Like he tried to ignore the sense that something was missing.

Some nights it was harder than others.

Like tonight. Sitting on the couch, TV droning quietly in the background, staring blankly into space. He was a little tired, a little distracted. A little discontented with everything in general.

Two parts power, one part belief. That's what it takes to make a witch.

Or in this particular and specific case: two parts power and one part wistful, lonely longing.

Something unfamiliar surged though him. Bucky clutched at his chest, afraid he was having a heart-attack; gasped as the world went white and everything _twisted_.

When it cleared, there was a man standing in front of him, looking confused and relieved and just this side of worried.

Bucky reacted the way almost anyone would react to a strange man suddenly standing in their living room, especially when that strange man was six-foot plus and apparently made of muscle.

He tried to deck him.

The man ducked out of the way, eyes wide. With an expression that screamed _I know this is a bad idea but I'm not sure what else to do,_ he caught Bucky's arm, twisted him around, and before Bucky knew what was happening he was face down on the carpet.

The man might not have been able to hold him—Bucky wasn't exactly a stranger to the occasional fight—except the moment the man's hands touched his skin something roared to life in him. It felt like electricity and fire and being wrapped in a warm blanket as every instinct screamed at him to _stop fighting,_ that here was someone who would _never_ hurt him.

Bucky tried not to listen, his instincts were obviously having an off day, but it didn't matter. The man was strong, stronger than Bucky, and he wasn't letting go.

"Could you _stop_?" It wasn't quite pleading, but it was close. "I'm your _familiar_ , I'm not going to hurt you."

" _What_?"

"Your familiar. I'm your familiar." There was a pause. "I don't really know how else to say that."

 _Oh, he was_ crazy _. Maybe fighting wasn't the way to go._ Bucky went limp and stared at the weave of the carpet. "Did you escape from somewhere? Do they know you're gone?" he asked conversationally. "How long have you been delusional? Is there someone I should call?"

There was a choked-off laugh from above him. "I'm going to let you go, okay?"

"Sure, why not." The weight disappeared off his back and Bucky rolled over, lifted his head for a better look. The man was standing over him, looking vaguely worried. His eyes were…his eyes were very blue and they seemed to go on forever.

Bucky blinked.

"Can I show you?" the man who might actually be a familiar asked.

"Show me what?"

"That I'm your familiar."

Bucky laughed, because this was _insane_ , and let his head fall back to clonk on the carpet. "Why not," he said again. The man crouched next to him, looking uncertain and determined, and flattened his hand over Bucky's heart.

There was a cracking, a tearing. For one brief second, Bucky thought he'd punched through his ribs and torn out his heart. He tried to curl around the pain but the hand on his chest held him in place. Blue eyes caught his, refused to let him go, as power surged through him, pooled under the hand on his chest and shot through his veins, sliced across his nerves, slid under his skin and slammed into his brain. It was crackling in the air around them.

Bucky gasped for breath, hands clutching the air helplessly.

He could _feel_ him pulling at the power careening through him, controlling it, keeping it from burning him up, burning him out. Slowly, incredibly slowly, the power settled, turning into a low simmer, something Bucky could breathe through.

Shocked, Bucky stared up at him. At some point he'd wrapped one hand around the man's wrist, clinging hard. The point where skin touched skin was warmth, was comfort, was something Bucky had no words for.

"I told you," he said gently. "I'm your familiar. You're my witch. I've been waiting for you to call me for a very long time. My name is Steve."

"Steve." It was the least magical name Bucky had ever heard. Somehow, that made it even more convincing.

"Yes."

"I'm Bucky."

Steve smiled. "I know."

"But I'm not a witch, this is a mistake. I don't have magic. They told me…" Steve eyed him, then glanced down at his hand, pressed over Bucky's heart. Bucky followed his gaze. Light was seeping out from between Steve's fingers. "They were wrong, huh?"

"Very."

 

* * *

 

The power was intoxicating.

Bucky accidentally blew up the TV, much to Steve's chagrin. He was pretty sure he would have set the living room on fire if not for the hand Steve clamped around the back of his neck as he locked down Bucky's magic.

Steve said he'd _always_ had power. Steve said he'd always had a _lot_ of power, enough that with no training he'd broken through his sincere and lifelong belief that he wasn't a witch and called Steve from the ether. Steve didn't understand how the Training Masters could have missed it. Even at seven, Bucky's magic would have been there.

Steve had been waiting for Bucky to call him from the ether since his magic had first appeared and Steve had been waiting most of Bucky's life.

 

* * *

 

There were rules for this, for when someone manifested magic as an adult. Bucky needed to present himself to the Academy. Not immediately, but soon. He could take some time, for which he was grateful, because he was reluctant to leave the house, to go where there were other people. All he wanted to do was stay close to Steve.

Steve said that was normal, that it was their bond settling into place. It was okay, Steve didn't want to leave him either.

They took a few days. It was strange. His entire life was about to be turned upside down, had _already_ been turned upside down; the power humming under his skin would be there forever, Steve would be there forever, and all he felt was...good. Whatever had been missing wasn't missing anymore, Steve was filling that empty space he'd barely been aware of.

When Steve wrapped strong fingers around the back of his neck in what was already their ritual for controlling the magic Bucky didn't yet know how to deal with, it felt like _more_. It felt like a promise, a promise that neither of them would ever be alone.

 

* * *

 

There was one thing that Bucky was wondering about, one thing he had to ask. "How come you look like this?"

"What do you mean?"

"You hardly ever see human familiars anymore."

"I'm _not_ human, I'm human-shaped."

Bucky waved a hand, conceding the point. "You know what I mean."

"Familiars shape themselves in part to their witch's desire."

Bucky slowly flushed scarlet. Steve _wasn't_ human, Bucky knew, but there was no denying his human shape was incredibly attractive.

Steve stared, surprised, then started laughing. "Not like that. I don't know _what_ I would have been if I'd come across like I should have, when you were young. But you called me _now_ and you were lonely." Bucky slumped down into the couch cushions, mortified, trying to hide. Steve's expression softened. "Hey, you weren't the only one. I'd been waiting for a long time," he said. "When you finally called me this seemed…right." Steve shrugged. "I'm happy."

"Are you sure?" Though what Bucky was going to do if Steve suddenly said, _Actually, no, I want to be a wolf instead_ , he had no idea.

"I'm sure."

 

* * *

 

The Academy was all marble and stone and silence, the red octopus emblazoned everywhere he turned. Bucky, in his jeans and cotton shirt, couldn't have been more out of place if he'd been naked. The only thing that kept him walking up the stairs and into the cold, sterile office was the power humming under his skin and Steve by his side, Steve whose hand came up to wrap around the back of his neck whenever Bucky's magic wanted to bounce away like an excited puppy.

Bucky suddenly felt sorry for Steve, because it must be like trying to herd cats keeping him under control.

The iron-faced witch behind the desk seemed on the point of calling security, right up until she got a good look at Steve. Her familiar's eyes went wide. Then suddenly she was looking at Bucky, _really_ looking, and he was explaining everything since he'd called Steve from the ether.

And then explaining again.

And again.

And again.

Any nervousness, any touch of awe, he might have felt faded under the sheer irritation of people who, he pretty quickly figured out, weren't happy to have someone like him show up. Not just show up; if Steve was to be believed ( _and he was always to be believed_ , his heart whispered), show up overflowing with power.

Bucky didn't much like the looks he got when he dropped down next to Steve in the hard chairs, suitable for supplicants, outside the Academy Head's office and leaned on him. His magic was simmering higher with his nerves, with his annoyance, and he reached over to grasp Steve's hand and pull at it, trying to get him to wrap it around the back of his neck where it belonged.

Steve resisted, told him, "Not here," in a low voice, and Bucky looked up to see the iron-faced witch who'd accompanied them, her lips pursed, eyes flickering with disapproval.

"Like I give a damn what she thinks," he muttered, but he let go of Steve.

Steve's reply was so quiet he barely heard it, but it sounded like, "You will."

They enrolled Bucky in the Academy. They didn't have a choice. Here he was, with a familiar and magic and too much power, and they had to train him.

Bucky hated it. He hated everything about it. No one explained anything, just told him to do it this way because it was _the way things were supposed to be done_. No one would answer his questions, especially not when he asked _why_ they had to do it this way. No one wanted Bucky there, he was sure, which was fine by him; the feeling was entirely mutual.

What he hated most of all, what he almost couldn't stomach, was seeing the familiars. They were everywhere, every witch had one, but they weren't like Steve. Oh, some were human-shaped, but they were all _less_ , all walked at their witch's heels and never _ever_ spoke first. His bond with Steve was _nothing_ like theirs, for which he was grateful. The idea of Steve showing that subservience, that creeping obsequiousness, made him equal parts furious and sick.

But there was something in the way Steve looked at him after he started at the Academy.

Like he was waiting.

Waiting for Bucky to…Bucky wasn't sure what. It made him uncomfortable. It made him want to _protect_ Steve. But he couldn't figure out what he was supposed to protect him from.

He was a bit afraid it was _him_.

 

* * *

 

"Mr Barnes." It was the same iron-faced witch Bucky had first encountered.

Bucky looked at her.

"There is a very simple reason you're not succeeding at this."

"Is there?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Yes. And the reason is you're not using your familiar."

Steve went still. Bucky shifted sideways to press his arm against Steve's. "Not sure I understand what you mean." It was a lie; he knew _exactly_ what she meant. She meant turn Steve into the same as all these other familiars, make him stop being _Steve_.

There was not one chance in hell that was ever going to happen.

"You understand perfectly, Mr Barnes. From what I suspect is an excess of sentimentality, not surprising given your...circumstances, you have chosen to allow your familiar to act autonomously. To decide what to do and what not to do. That's why you're failing. If you wish to succeed, you will bring him under control. He will do as you bid when you bid it. That's what's required if you want to master these exercises." Her gaze shifted to Steve. Anger burst to life and raced up Bucky's spine. "Is that not correct?"

Bucky felt Steve turn to iron beside him. "Yes." It was utterly flat, devoid of emotion.

"You see? Even your familiar knows what's required."

Bucky was fairly certain his reaction, his explosion of fury, would go down in Academy history. It was only thanks to Steve's fast reactions that the room was still intact when they stormed out, Steve's hand around his wrist as he slammed controls down over Bucky's power. The ceiling was singed, curls of black like filigree lace spreading out above what was left of Bucky's worktable.

Bucky's former worktable, because he was never going back.

Neither of them said a word on the trip home, Steve focused on keeping Bucky's magic locked down, Bucky too angry to speak.

Once they were safely inside their house, Bucky whirled to face Steve. His magic was under control. His anger was another story. Steve's expression was wary. "I will never treat you like that."

"I'm not human." There was _nothing_ in Steve's tone, no emotion, in his face, in his body. "I may look human, but I'm not."

It was infuriating. Bucky crowded him, needing him to understand; Steve backed away, kept going until he hit the wall. "I don't care. You're still you. You're still a, a person. I'm not, I'm _never_ going to treat you like that. I'm never going to let _anyone_ treat you like that. We're never going back there. I don't care if I don't get trained. Not if that's what it means. Not if it means I start acting like them."

Steve was very still, looking at him out of fathomless eyes.

"I'd rather have you lock me down for the rest of my life than do that to you. I'd rather _lose you_ than have you creeping along like some sort of slave."

Steve still didn't speak. He'd never looked less human and Bucky felt like he was a million miles away. Like he really was losing him. Bucky clutched the front of his shirt. "It's not supposed to be like this." His voice cracked on the last word, and he drew in a shuddering breath, forced himself to step back, because he shouldn't be doing this to Steve. He didn't manage more than half a step, because Steve reached out and pulled Bucky into his arms.

"No, it's not." Steve's voice was quiet and his hands were very gentle as held Bucky. "It's not." Bucky burrowed into him, wrapped his arms around him as tightly as he could. He could feel his magic trying to rise, feel it singing to the surface of his skin, and Steve holding it back, keeping it where it belonged. "Do you know where familiars come from?"

"From the ether." His voice was muffled, his face pressed against Steve's shoulder.

"It's a little more complicated than that." Bucky made a _go on_ noise. "We're born from the ether and we're _reborn_ from the ether, and we keep the memories of who we were before. Familiars are familiars through lifetime after lifetime."

Bucky tipped his head back so he could see Steve's face. "I didn't know that."

Steve's smile was cautious. "No one knows that."

Bucky's heart paused, as the sheer weight of that sunk in, then it resumed beating, a little bit faster than before. "Are you allowed to tell me that?"

"It doesn't matter, since I just did."

"You've been a familiar before?"

"Yes. I've been a familiar through so many lifetimes. And I remember what it was like to be one of _those_ familiars. To be a servant. To be made to _obey._ " Steve looked away and Bucky felt his hands tighten against his back. "I almost refused to come back. A lot of us have. The familiars that are out there now? Most of them are brand new. They've never lived before. They don't remember anything different from how it is now."

Bucky's mind was spinning, there were so many things he wanted to ask. "But you do."

Steve nodded.

" _You_ remember when things were different."

"Yes."

"You chose to come back. For me?"

Steve's eyes warmed. "Yes."

It was humbling. What did you say to someone who chose to be reborn for you? To take the chance..."You didn't know if I might be the same as the rest of them."

"I had a good feeling about you." Steve ran a hand over Bucky's hair and let it settle at the nape of his neck. "I was right."

Bucky wanted to hide Steve away so no other witch could even _see_ him. He was never going back to the Academy. Never. "Steve," he said slowly. "Can you teach me?"

Shock splashed across Steve's face. "Bucky, I'm your familiar. I can't teach you to be a witch."

"Why not?" Steve opened his mouth but Bucky bulled forward. "If you remember when things were different, who better? I can't, everything the Academy wanted me to learn depended on me using you, on turning you into, into a servant or a damn battery, and I'm not going to do that. Would you try? If it doesn't work we'll figure something else out. But right now, you're the only one I trust."

"Bucky." Steve tipped his head to rest against Bucky's, eyes closed, thinking hard. Bucky could feel his magic surge up as Steve's concentration slipped, felt it reach out for Steve, felt Steve reach back and soothe it to sleep. "All right, yes. Yes, I'll try."

 

* * *

 

Three Training Masters turned up the next day, red octopus badges gleaming on their left breasts, and stood on the front stoop, demanding Bucky return. Telling him he was a danger. Telling him if he didn't come voluntarily he'd be _made_ to return.

It was Steve who saved him, clamped fingers around the back of his neck and locked down his magic, magic that wanted to explode out of him in a fury. Steve—who remembered countless previous lives and rules Bucky knew nothing about—who reminded the Training Masters there was nothing that said Bucky had to be taught at the Academy, just that he had to pass the tests. Steve who told them Bucky had a familiar who was more than capable of keeping him under control while he learned how to control himself.

That they could leave, thank you, and come back in three months to test Bucky any way they cared to.

The absolute horror, the sheer affront, on the faces of the Training Masters as a familiar dared to speak to them with such disrespect, dared to speak to them _at all_ , made Bucky's anger run away like water. He grinned at them, grinned at their familiars who were doing their best to pretend Steve didn't exist. "What he said," he said calmly and shut the door in their faces.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Steve made them do was rip the yard down to bare dirt. Bucky had asked why, and Steve had looked at him out of fathomless blue eyes and asked, "Do you want me to teach you or not?" He'd asked it gently, and he'd touched Bucky while he'd asked, but there'd been something in his expression, something halfway between afraid and utterly inhuman. Like he wasn't sure Bucky really trusted him to do this. 

Bucky hadn't questioned him again.

They visited a nursery and returned with seeds and seedlings and plants, some Bucky had never heard of, and spent two days turning the bare dirt into a patchwork of future growth. He still didn't understand but he trusted Steve, so he did as he asked, digging where Steve directed, pushing seeds and roots into the dirt, black embedding itself under his fingernails and in the lines of his skin.

On the fifth day, with a day to rest and recover, Steve having turned his strong fingers to the entirely different task of digging out Bucky's aches and knots from the unfamiliar labour, Steve sat him down in the middle of what would someday be a garden. Sat him down and told him to find the spark in the plants, to look for the energy in them that meant they were alive. Explained that it was the same as the power inside of him, even it was only the faintest echo, and Steve wanted him to find it. 

"I'll kill them," Bucky said, remembering an exploded TV and black filigree on the Academy ceiling.

"Reach out _gently_ ," Steve said, fingers threading through his. "I won't let you hurt them."

It wasn't that Bucky had any great and desperate love for plants, but they'd spent two days digging these in and watering them and he didn't want them to die. _Trust Steve_ , _always trust Steve._ He took a deep breath and for the first time since the Academy, deliberately called his magic. He felt Steve reaching for it with him, holding it, helping him keep it calm and focused, and he tentatively stretched and found them. Tiny spark after tiny spark, surrounding them. It was natural to feed magic into them, letting it flow through Steve, and he felt the sparks getting bigger, bolder, brighter, until they were reaching back. The world was gone, all that existed was the glorious song of life, and he surrendered entirely.

Steve was cutting him off, pulling him back. He came back to awareness of himself one body part at a time. He was slumped over Steve, practically in his lap. His eyes were closed and he was exhausted. He felt _good_ , better than he'd felt in a long time. His awareness of Steve was heightened, he could feel him in the back of his head, in his heart, in his soul. He wondered if it was temporary. He hoped it wasn't.

"Bucky."

He thought about sitting up and opening his eyes. Decided Steve's lap with Steve's arms around him was the far better option. "No." He felt more than heard Steve hold back a laugh. 

"Open your eyes."

He did. The bare dirt was gone. He and Steve were sitting in the middle of a riotous garden, lush and verdant and tangled, rich green grass under them and around them in a soft carpet of new life. He couldn't see the fence. He could barely see the walls of the house. Bucky sat up so fast his head spun. Steve steadied him as he stared, craning his neck to see everything. " _How?_ "

"You did this." Bucky's eyes found his. Steve nodded. "This is just the start."

 

* * *

 

Steve taught him magic, taught him how to be a witch, in a way the world hadn't seen in generations. It was different, _very_ different, even from how it had been generations ago, because familiars saw the world in a way that humans didn't. But it made sense to Bucky. He understood what Steve was showing him. Together, they learned what worked for them, what they could do together.

His magic was entirely different from everything the Academy had been. It was messy, for a start. Chaotic, sometimes, and crazy and warm. The house rapidly became a reflection of his magic, filled with strange smells and covered in strange symbols, some of which Steve remembered and some of which they created together out of whole cloth. There were bundles of dried herbs and flowers, bundles of incense. Jars of honey and candles made from wax they bought from a farm far outside of town. When they brought back the honey and the wax they also brought back the start of their own hives, the bees happy to live in their garden.

The plants in the garden served a purpose in almost everything Bucky learned. They were life and strength and power, Bucky's power given back to him, and he could turn them to his own ends without worrying he was going to hurt something or someone.

Steve was teaching him to be a different kind of witch. A witch who knew magic was about asking. Was about being willing to give up as much as you were asking for. A witch who knew there were consequences for everything you did and that a familiar was not a tool. A familiar was a partner and a friend and the one person in the whole world you could trust beyond reason.

A familiar was a gift. Steve was a gift.

Of course, Bucky told himself, with everything going so well on the witch side of things it was inevitable that he'd fuck up the personal.

It took him awhile to figure out he was _in_ _love_ with Steve, because of course he loved him. That went without saying. Steve was part of him; he'd loved him since the first moment he'd seen him. Okay, maybe not the _first_ moment, what with trying to deck him and all, but from pretty soon after that.

Steve had been the missing part of his life that he'd never known was missing. It made perfect sense that Bucky would decide he was the answer to _all_ the other missing bits of his life. But he figured being in love with Steve wasn't a bad thing (at least not for Steve; Bucky was pretty sure it was going to give him some sad and sleepless nights). It would make Steve even safer. Even if Bucky who loved Steve was someday tempted to cross that line and treat him like a tool (even though the idea made him sick to his stomach, even though he knew _he knew_ he never would), Bucky who was _in love_ with Steve wouldn't. 

As hard as living with it would be, it was a good thing. He'd just keep it under wraps, tuck it away, and Steve would never know.

Bucky could sometime be an idiot.

They were leaning over the kitchen counter, dried lavender spread out in front of them as Bucky carefully braided the stems together. His fingers still weren't as deft as Steve's, so he had to concentrate.

"Remember how I said the familiar is shaped by the witch's desire?" Steve's chin was resting on Bucky's shoulder.

"Of course I remember," Bucky said absently.

"Sometimes it's the other way around." Bucky turned his head. Steve was very close and his lips curved in a warm smile.

Bucky frowned in confusion. "What?"

Steve's smile grew and then he was kissing Bucky, one hand curled under his chin. Bucky went still even as he wanted to throw himself into the kiss, a little voice in his head chanting, _Did I do this? Did I do this to Steve?_ Steve lifted his head and said, "Bucky," in that soft voice, the voice that meant _trust me_ , and Bucky sighed and let go, gave himself over to the kiss.

He still had to ask, when the world came back and he could think again, "Is this okay?"

"I was the one who started kissing you," Steve said, deeply amused. "Shouldn't I be asking that question?"

"But you're my familiar. Did I, I don't know. I didn't make you do it, did I?" He couldn't keep the worry out of his voice. "Do you really want to?"

Steve's smile was warm and fond and he wrapped Bucky up in his arms and hugged him tightly. "I love you," he said, laughing softly. 

"That's not an answer," he grumbled, torn between sulking, because he was being laughed at when he was trying to protect Steve, and exploding into pure joy, because Steve _loved him_.

Steve was silent and Bucky was glad, because it meant he was actually thinking about it, thinking about what Bucky had asked. "Maybe it would be different," he finally said. "If I'd come across when you were young. If I hadn't had to wait so long for you to call me from the ether. If I'd been shaped under your shadow and in your mind. But I wasn't. You grew up alone and I waited for you alone. We shaped ourselves without each other, we had to be our own people." Steve wrapped his hand around the back of his neck and Bucky swayed into him. "And this own person wants you."

"It's really as simple as that?"

"I'm in love with you and you're in love with me. It doesn't get much simpler."

Bucky smiled. "You think I'm in love with you, huh?"

"I know you are." Steve sounded distinctly smug.

How had he ever thought he could hide it from Steve? "You're right, I am," he said, and went back to kissing him, magic simmering between them.

 

* * *

 

They came, the Training Masters, at the end of three months, and Bucky let them into their house. Into their home with its gardens and its smells and all the strangeness of it. It wasn't clean and sterile like the Academy. It was messy and warm and beautiful and they couldn't see it. They wrinkled their noses and made snide comments to each other and to their familiars.

Their familiars gave both of them a wide berth and disapproving looks. The Master who seemed to be in charge, dressed in a suit so expensive Bucky thought it might be worth more than the house, seemed obsessed with the symbols, what they were and why they were painted everywhere, because that was Simply Not Done. Bucky attempted to look competent and mysterious, but he was pretty sure he mostly looked pissed off. Steve stood by his side and slid his hand into Bucky's.

In the end, none of it mattered. Not the endless array of jars or the salt that sat on every surface. Not the scents that filled the air: the bundled herbs and the incense, the waxy tang of candles and the sweetness of honey. Steve put both hands on the skin of Bucky's neck while Bucky called his magic and when he was finished the Training Masters were pale and their familiars averted their eyes.

Bucky passed their tests. Bucky passed all of them. There was no test Bucky and Steve couldn’t pass and they knew it.

They left.

When they were gone, Bucky turned, Steve’s hands falling to rest on his shoulders, and he smiled as Steve leaned in and kissed him.

 

* * *

 

And so began a quiet revolution. 

Bucky and Steve between them had long since realised that the Training Masters missing Bucky as a child couldn't have been an accident. Two parts power and one part belief made a witch. They'd stripped Bucky of his belief and manipulated him into unmaking himself. He'd _known_ he could never be a witch: if not for his deep well of power and a specific and particular set of circumstances, he never would have been.

It had to have been deliberate. It was the only explanation.

Quietly, calmly, they began to search for others like Bucky. The ones with two parts power and one part belief that they _weren't_ witches, that they _weren't_ magic. Slowly, gradually, they found them. Slowly, gently, they showed them they were wrong.

The old familiars, familiars like Steve, who remembered lives lived in the days before magic became sterile and controlled, before familiars became servants and tools, began to return.

Steve and Bucky taught these new witches; their familiars, once they got over the shock of being asked, also began to teach. Not all—for some it was simply too strange—but enough. Enough that they could keep reaching out. Enough that their magic of gardens and growing things, of warmth and love, magic rooted in choices and consequences, in understanding and partnership, began to spread.

Bucky was a licensed witch, however begrudgingly it had been granted. Nothing they were doing was wrong, nothing they were doing was illegal, every one of their students passed the tests.  

Those who wore the octopus were controlled and precise and the very epitome of order, their familiars were obedient and servile and jumped to their every whim, but they were cut off from the heart of magic, had cut themselves off from everything magic could be.

As time passed, Bucky and Steve's students carrying their way of being a witch farther out into the world, Bucky discovered he felt sorry for them.

 

* * *

 

It was a calm Saturday morning and Bucky was leaning sleepily on Steve's shoulder. They were sitting at a wooden table in a patch of sunshine, surrounded by the tangled chaos of their gardens. They were drinking chamomile tea brewed from their own herbs, bees bumbling lazily through the flowers as birds called overhead, and all was peaceful.

Their peace was interrupted by the sound of a man clearing his throat. He was tall, dressed in an expensive suit, and on his left breast was a gleaming red octopus. His familiar, shaped like a short woman with green eyes, studied them curiously. She was not walking at his heel; instead she stood by his side, although she seemed a little uncertain to be there. The man's hand rested on the shoulder of a young girl, who couldn't have been more than ten. Cradled in the girl's arms, upside down, wings folded and clawed feet waving gently, was a familiar shaped like a hawk.

Bucky straightened, Steve's hands finding Bucky's skin as Bucky gently, carefully called his magic. The man was potentially an enemy, but there was a child and neither of them would ever do anything to harm a child.

The man, to Bucky's surprise, gave them a tired smile and attempted to raise no magic of his own. "I doubt that I'm welcome here, and I understand, but this is my daughter, Natasha, and her familiar, Hawkeye. I want," he looked away, glanced at his own familiar, standing by his side, before meeting Bucky's eyes, "I want something better for them. I know you take on students, teach people who want to learn a different way. Will you teach her?"

Bucky exchanged a glance with Steve, and then smiled, letting his magic fade. "Of course."    

**Author's Note:**

> This started as one of those quick little not-quite-a-fic things you write on the train because _someone_ tags you in [a Tumblr post](https://leveragehunters.tumblr.com/post/148288318798/things-to-consider-before-living-with-a-witch) but my brain was rolling out so much backstory I had to turn it into an actual fic.


End file.
